Bleed Like Me: A Scott & Bailey Novel

The Journey’s Inn, Lark’s Estate, Manchester. Three bodies have been found, stabbed to death in their beds. The husband and father of two of the victims has fled. The police are in a race against time to find him – especially when they discover his two young sons are also missing...Manchester Metropolitan police station. Having survived a near-fatal attack, DC Janet Scott is quietly falling apart. And her best friend and colleague DC Rachel Bailey is reeling from a love affair gone bad.

Dead to Me: A Scott and Bailey novel

A daughter's death. A teenage girl is found, brutally murdered in her squalid flat. A mother's love. Her mother is devastated. She gave her child up to the care system, only to lose her again, and is convinced that the drug-pusher boyfriend is to blame. Two ordinary women, one extraordinary job. DC Rachel Bailey has dragged herself up from a deprived childhood and joined the Manchester Police.

Ruthless

A blaze at an abandoned chapel in impoverished Manorclough turns out to be more than just arson when the body of a man who has been shot twice is discovered in the ashes. For the Manchester Metropolitan police team it’s the start of a gruelling and complex case that exposes the fractures and fault lines of a community living on the edge. DC Rachel Bailey, recently married, is trying to come to terms with her new status and deal with the fallout from her chaotic family.

Thin Air

A group of old university friends travel to Unst to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends to a Shetlander. But late on the night of the wedding party, one of them, Eleanor, disappears. The following day, Eleanor's friend Polly receives an email. It appears to be a suicide note. And then Eleanor's body is discovered, lying in a small loch close to the cliff edge. Detectives Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves are dispatched to investigate. Before she went missing, Eleanor claimed to have seen a ghost.

The Girl on the Train

Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She's even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. 'Jess and Jason', she calls them. Their life - as she sees it - is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And then she sees something shocking. It's only a minute until the train moves on, but it's enough. Now everything's changed.

The Ghost Fields: Ruth Galloway, Book 7

Norfolk is experiencing a July heat wave when a construction crew unearths a macabre discovery - a buried World War II plane with the pilot still inside. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway quickly realizes that the skeleton couldn't possibly be the pilot, and DNA tests identify the man as Fred Blackstock, a local aristocrat who had been reported dead at sea. When the remaining members of the Blackstock family learn about the discovery, they seem strangely frightened by the news.

No Place to Die

DS Jane Bennett takes charge of South London's Lewisham murder squad following the temporary suspension of her boss, DI Mike Lockyer. His involvement with a female witness resulted in her murder. Mike returns to work, but he's a shadow of the detective he was a few months before. Bennett gets a desperate call from an old friend to say that her husband, retired colleague Mark Leech, has gone missing. Blood spatters found in the home suggest she doesn't have long to find him.

The Skeleton Road

When a skeleton is discovered hidden at the top of a gothic Victorian building in Edinburgh, which is scheduled for renovation, Cold Case Squad detective Karen Pirie is given the task of identifying the decades-old bones. Her investigation leads her back to past conflicts, false identities and buried secrets...

Troubled Waters

A young, disabled girl is lost on a winter's night in Leith, unable to help herself or find her way home. Someone is combing the streets, frantically searching for her. Within hours of her disappearance, a body is washed up on Beamer Rock, a tiny island in the Forth being used as part of the foundations for the new Queensferry Bridge. No sooner has DI Alice Rice managed to discover the identity of that body than another one is washed up on the edge of the estuary, in Belhaven Bay.

The Risk of Darkness: Simon Serrailler 3

Following on from the child abduction in her previous novel The Pure in Heart, Susan Hill explores the crazy grief of a widowed husband, a derangement that turns to obsession and threats, violence and terror.

Keep the Midnight Out

When the body of a red-haired young man is washed up on the shore of the beautiful Isle of Mull, Detective Superintendent Lorimer's tranquil holiday away from the gritty streets of Glasgow is rudely interrupted. The body has been bound with twine in a ghoulishly unnatural position and strongly reminds Lorimer of another murder: a twenty-year-old Glasgow case that he failed to solve as a newly fledged detective constable and which has haunted him ever since.

You Are Dead: Roy Grace Mystery, Book 11

You are Dead is the eleventh thrilling crime novel in Peter James' Roy Grace series. They were marked for death. The last words Jamie Ball hears from his fiancée, Logan Somerville, are in a terrified mobile phone call. She has just driven into the underground car park beneath the block of flats where they live in Brighton. Then she screams and the phone goes dead. The police are on the scene within minutes, but Logan has vanished, leaving behind her neatly parked car and mobile phone.

Sins of the Father: A DS Jimmy Suttle Novel

A rich old man, Rupert Moncrieff, is beaten to death in the silence of his West Country waterside mansion, his head hooded and his throat cut. His extended family are still living beneath his roof, each with their own room, their own story, their own ghosts, and their own motives for murder. And in this world of darkness and dysfunction are the artefacts and memories of colonial atrocities that are returning to haunt them all.

A Dark and Twisted Tide: Lacey Flint Series, Book 4

Former detective Lacey Flint quit the force for a safer, quieter life. Or that’s what she thought. Now living alone on her houseboat, she is trying to get over the man she loves, undercover detective Mark Joesbury. But Mark is missing in action and impossible to forget. And danger won’t leave Lacey alone. When she finds a body floating in the river near her home, wrapped in burial cloths, she can’t resist asking questions. Who is this woman, and why was she hidden in the fast-flowing depths? And who has been delivering unwanted gifts to Lacey?

The Crossing Places

When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, Ruth Galloway lectures at the University of North Norfolk. She lives happily alone in a remote place called Saltmarsh overlooking the North Sea and, for company; she has her cats Flint and Sparky, and Radio 4. When a child's bones are found in the marshes near an ancient site that Ruth worked on ten years earlier, Ruth is asked to date them.

A Bird in the Hand

Young Tom French was found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put the village of Rushy on the birdwatching map. Everyone liked him. Or did they? George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher who decided quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovered mixed feelings aplenty.

The Various Haunts of Men: Simon Serrailler 1

A woman vanishes in the fog up on "the Hill", an area locally known for its tranquillity and peace. The police are not alarmed; people usually disappear for their own reasons. But when a young girl, an old man, and even a dog disappear, no one can deny that something untoward is happening in this quiet cathedral town.

The Silkworm: Cormoran Strike, Book 2

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published it would ruin lives - so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him.

The Missing and the Dead (Logan McRae, Book 9)

The new Logan McRae novel from the No. 1 bestselling author of Close of the Bone and A Song for the Dying. One mistake can cost you everything…When you catch a twisted killer there should be a reward, right? What Acting Detective Inspector Logan McRae gets instead is a ‘development opportunity' out in the depths of rural Aberdeenshire. Welcome to divisional policing - catching drug dealers, shop lifters, vandals and the odd escaped farm animal.

Abattoir Blues: The 22nd DCI Banks Mystery

The 22nd novel in number-one best-selling author Peter Robinson's critically acclaimed DCI Banks series. When two boys vanish under mysterious circumstances, the local community is filled with unease. And when a caravan belonging to one of the youths is burned to the ground, and a bloodstain is discovered in a disused World War Two hangar nearby, things quickly become much more sinister.

Runaway

In 1965, five teenage friends fled Glasgow for London to pursue their dream of musical stardom. Yet before year's end three returned, and returned damaged. In 2015, a brutal murder forces those three men, now in their sixties, to journey back to London and finally confront the dark truth they have run from for five decades.

The Road to Hell: An Alice Rice Mystery, Book 4

When the body of a half-clothed woman is discovered in an Edinburgh park, a murder investigation is launched. The victim has not been reported missing and there are few clues to her identity. Soon after, the naked corpse of a prominent clergyman is found, also in a park. DS Alice Rice wonders if the same killer is at work, and if so, what is the connection between the apparently motiveless attacks? The Road to Hell, the fourth in the series, takes the policewoman to new personal depths.

Shadows in the Street: Simon Serrailler 5

Simon Serrailler has just wrapped up an exhausting and difficult case for SIFT – Special Incident Flying Taskforce – and is on a sabbatical on a Scottish island when he is recalled to Lafferton. Two local prostitutes have vanished and are subsequently found strangled. By the time he gets back, another girl has disappeared. Is this a vendetta against prostitutes by someone with a warped mind? Or a series of killings by an angry punter?

The Last Anniversary

"I'll tell you something, something important. Love is a decision. Not a feeling. That's what you young people don't realise. That's why you're always off divorcing each other. No offence, dear." So decrees the formidable Connie Thrum of Scribbly Gum Island. She is the chief decision-maker of a rather unconventional family and her word is law. It's been over seventy years since Connie and her sister Rose visited their neighbours and found the kettle boiling and a baby waking for her feed, but no sign of her parents.

The Soul of Discretion: Simon Serrailler Book 8

The cathedral town of Lafferton seems idyllic, but in many ways it is just like any other place. As part of the same rapidly changing world, it shares the same hopes and fears, and the same kinds of crime, as any number of towns up and down the land.When one day DC Simon Serrailler is called in by Lafferton's new Chief Constable, Kieron Bright, he is met by four plainclothes officers. He is asked to take the lead role in a complex, potentially dangerous undercover operation and must leave town immediately.

Publisher's Summary

Based on the hit TV Series Scott and Bailey

The Journey’s Inn, Lark’s Estate, Manchester. Three bodies have been found, stabbed to death in their beds. The husband and father of two of the victims has fled. The police are in a race against time to find him – especially when they discover his two young sons are also missing....

Manchester Metropolitan police station. Having survived a near-fatal attack, DC Janet Scott is quietly falling apart. And her best friend and colleague DC Rachel Bailey is reeling from a love affair gone bad.

DCI Gill Murray is trying to keep the team on track, but her own family problems are threatening tip her over the edge. Finding the desperate man is their top priority. But none of them knows where he is going or what he intends to do next. Or what will they have to do to stop him....

I loved listening to this book, it really brought back the characters and although I had seen the story on the tv series, it was still worth listening too for the extra detail, especially about the private lives of the women and their characters.The story was very interesting - I love books that are not full of action, but psychologically gripping, and this had lots of drama that didn't rely on cars, guns and violence, thank goodness.The contrast between the professional lives of the detectives and their often chaotic private lives I enjoyed the most. Well worth listening too. I do find it difficult to listen to some voices over a long period of time, but this reader was excellent, if occasionally her accent slipped, which is why I gave her only 4 instead of 5 stars!

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Ouizsee

S'oton, Hampshire

4/13/13

Overall

"Great listen!"

A really good listen from start to finish. Very detailed in the police procedure but the story revolves around the lives of three woman working for the Manchester Met Police and how they deal with the ups and downs of their daily lives whilst remaining (mostly) professional and strong in their careers in what is a predominately male environment. Would definitely recommend this follow up to Cath Staincliffe's first Scott and Bailey novel, Dead to Me. Well read by Katy Carmichael.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Saffy

UK

3/21/13

Overall

"Cath Staincliffe at her best!"

I love Cath Staincliffe's novels and her writing for radio and I'm also a huge Scott and Bailey fan. I was very disappointed when I read her first Scott and Bailey novel which had an incredibly slow moving plot and gave far too much background history on the characters. This, her second Scott and Bailey is so much better. It has a faster moving plot and is police procedural writing at it's best. The characterisation is excellent and the narrator reads it perfectly. Crime writing perfection!

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Judith

Dursley, United Kingdom

9/25/13

Overall

Performance

Story

"Annoying narration"

I have been vacillating about downloading this novel for some time. I have watched several of the TV episodes and enjoyed them. This is a case of the TV being better than the novel!

The narrator spoilt this story for me so much I feel unable to rate the story well. I stopped caring who 'dun it' and still don't know why he 'dun it' even though I did try to listen to the end. The narrator had a really annoying habit of pronouncing e-v-e-r-y syllable in each word equally, I think, in an attempt at a Manchester accent. The accent was wobbly and failed to distinguish between the three main female character. Can I have my money back please?

0 of 2 people found this review helpful

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